The Virtuous Concubine

Jingyi and Dachun hurried into the main hall, and only felt relieved when they saw the child in Malu's arms looking at her with big eyes.

The queen would definitely not do anything to the child, otherwise the child would not be born at all. But the child was suddenly taken away by someone in front of the emperor, saying that he was going to be given to the queen, which confused Jingyi and others.

With Liang Jiugong's reminder, Malu naturally understood. She handed the child to Dachun and said, "The emperor suddenly mentioned this matter at noon today, and he didn't give us a chance to explain, so he... brought the child here."

Jingyi couldn't help but burst into tears, her heart filled with resentment and confusion: "What on earth does he want to do?"

There was not even a trace of respect in her words towards Kangxi, the murderer who had repeatedly destroyed her peaceful life.

Malu sighed softly and touched the child's cheek. "Don't be impulsive. I've made up my mind. When the time comes, I'll still raise Thirteen and Fourteen together, but I won't take them back at night. You'll have to take care of the two children."

Jingyi bit her lip, knowing that what the Queen said was the best arrangement.

But she had a bad feeling. Sure enough, Malu whispered, "Liang Jiugong said that this is your blessing. You...you should prepare for the next two days."

Jingyi's body trembled slightly when she heard this, and a trace of panic flashed in her eyes. She looked at Malu nervously, "Madam, why is this happening? I... I don't understand."

Jingyi really didn’t understand. She had tried her best to reduce her presence, so why did the emperor still remember her and feel disgusted with her?

Malu shook his head: "Who knows what this kind of person is thinking. If you don't want to, you should have found a reason to avoid it earlier."

Jingyi thanked Malu with tears in her eyes, took another deep look at the baby Thirteen in the cradle, then turned around and left resolutely.

Malu kept Dachun and told her: "There are many ways to avoid it. Be careful not to let Jingyi hurt herself. If you need anything, come and tell me."

After giving all these instructions, Malu finally felt relieved and tried to pass a message to Rong Ji, asking him to find a way to make Kangxi quiet down for two days... and not to enter the harem to upset her.

Malu felt sorry for Jingyi from the bottom of her heart. In order to avoid Kangxi, Jingyi always wore plain clothes and light makeup, and her clothes were even worse than when she was a palace maid.

Even after giving birth to Thirteen, she still wore simple clothes in her daily life, mostly in light blue, light green and other colors. Her hair accessories and jewelry were as simple as possible and definitely not complicated. Anything less would make her lose her status.

In her daily life, she was even more low-key. She would not go out if she could, and she would stay in Yonghe Palace all day. Even when she had a child, she would take the child out for more outdoor activities and sunbathing. When she walked in the palace, she kept her head down and did not compete with other concubines for beauty.

Whenever she was in the presence of the emperor, she would try to stand behind the crowd and would not take the initiative to step forward to greet the emperor or attract his attention.

At court banquets, she would sit quietly in a corner and not join in the conversation. Even when she was called upon to answer questions at the full-moon ceremony, she would speak briefly and respectfully, without deliberately showing off her talents.

She watched Jingyi wither day by day and could only be thankful that she still had a child. But today, Kangxi wanted to take away even her child.

How can one not hate this?

Fortunately, since Rong Ji went to the imperial court, he quickly gained the trust of Kangxi under the deliberate support of the court judge. Many of his measures and ideas were deeply appreciated by Kangxi.

The most important point is that because of Malu, Rong Ji is not resistant to Western medicine at all. Instead, he is quite interested in its efficacy. In this respect, he is better than many people in the Imperial Hospital.

He also didn't like to show off his knowledge in front of Kangxi - if possible, he felt that being a minor imperial physician in the Yonghe Palace for the rest of his life would be the happiest thing, so naturally he didn't want to say much to this love rival.

After receiving the message from Malu today, Rong Ji thought that Malu missed him and was even more impatient to serve Kangxi. He hoped that he could think of a solution.

Then he has too many ways!

After returning, Jingyi also thought of a way. If she wanted to avoid the emperor's favor, she could only pretend to be sick and worship Buddha. If she pretended to be sick, it would really hurt her body. Even if Doctor Gu was the empress's man, she could not prevent the emperor from calling several doctors over.

The Empress and Dachun would definitely not allow me to do anything that would harm my body.

The only way left is to worship Buddha. When worshiping Buddha, one must fast and eat vegetarian food, and must not indulge in any extravagant or lewd behavior.

However, the time that can be delayed by doing so is extremely limited, and the constraints on the emperor are minimal.

Although Kangxi was in mourning, he still turned over the names of his concubines. However, those concubines who had been favored had to take contraceptive soup. After all, during the period of national mourning, royal family members were forbidden to have children. If the emperor took the lead in letting concubines get pregnant, wouldn't it be a big "filial piety"?

Therefore, during this period, people's desire to compete for favor was not strong.

What's the point of competing for favor? You're not allowed to have children.

During the period of mourning, they ate vegetarian food all day long, and they didn't even have the strength to hang themselves! Not to mention competing for favor. Even if they were favored, they couldn't wear the gorgeous clothes and accessories given by the emperor, and there was no way to stimulate the concubines to make progress.

Under such suppression, Kangxi's harem has recently shown an unprecedented harmony.

This is also why Kangxi always felt that when he entered the harem, there was a lack of excitement and novelty, and it was really boring.

There were more and more maids in the palace, but Kangxi felt that they were all the same. The selection of concubines was not possible for the time being, and newcomers could not enter the palace.

Kangxi's dissatisfaction grew day by day, and he began to miss the days when the concubines in the harem competed with each other for beauty. Those women, some charming and beautiful, some smart and beautiful, showed their best in order to win his favor, which was like a hundred flowers blooming.

The harem is now silent, as if it has lost its vitality. Previously, there was Wang, who was brought back from Jiangnan, who could provide some comfort, but after being back for so long, she is a little bored.

Of course he had complained and given advice, but after the funeral of the Empress Dowager, the concubines who had been punished by him for competing for favor were still in front of them, and they did not dare to repeat the same mistakes, and they were still very cautious.

After thinking about it, among the forty or fifty people in the harem, Jingyi is the only one who is avoiding him.

Before he could do anything, something big happened in the previous dynasty.

After Galdan came to power in the Dzungar tribe of western Mongolia, he annexed other tribes in western Mongolia and continued to grow in power. He successively attacked the cities of the Khoshut tribe and the Hui tribe, and secretly colluded with the Russian Empire, repeatedly invading the northern desert with the support of the Russian Empire.

Now, Galdan led his troops across the Hangai Mountains, attacked the Tushetu Khanate in northern Mongolia, captured Kulun (now Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), and even went deep into the Ujumchin area in southern Mongolia!

Disputes broke out within the Khalkha Mongols, and the conflict between Zasaktu Khan and Tushetu Khan intensified.

Galdan took the opportunity to intervene and divided his troops into three groups to attack Tushetu Khan's tribe, causing the Mongolian tribes in the northern desert to flee to the southern desert after being defeated and requesting protection from the Qing court. Kangxi provided relief and resettlement to Chahundorji and other tribes, and sent a letter to Galdan to convene a meeting of the Mongolian tribes, but was rejected by Galdan.

This was a slap in the face to Kangxi. Feeling threatened and slapped in the face, Kangxi was extremely angry and decided to lead the army in person early!